I am awake. Sitting up, the scratchy mattress stuffing reminds me why I go to bed late. If there was something else to stuff the mattresses with, it would make sleeping easier. With my summers over 20, I am taking my time stretching in the mornings. The longer I spend stretching, the easier it is to leave the room and make my way to the fields. I’m not yet unable to move if I’ve had a bad sleep – unlike my mother’s knees and back. She is always groaning and grumbling in the mornings. I am convinced it is mostly for show. She moves with speed and grace when the need arises.
With my stretches complete, I use my fingers to ease the crusty sand from my eyes. Irritating. When I’m finished on the toilet, I sit at the table for my breakfast. Mother has a pot of porridge cooking already – I’m a late riser.
“Thank you mother.” I say with a smile. She ruffles my hair. It is short and brown. I don’t like having it swipe over my neck. That makes it difficult to deal with when I am sweating outdoors. This short it never gets in my eyes or creates a problem in the sun. “Another day in the sun, hmm?” she says, slopping several ladles of porridge into a bowl. I am lucky to have a mother who is willing to keep me indoors through the night. I help around the house on my days off, and she doesn’t urge me to find someone to keep me pregnant through the year. It is a mutually beneficial agreement. I think she might like having me as an excuse not to have visitors.
“Have you washed your hands?” She slides the bowl over the timber table towards me. It stops just short of me. It is an old, weathered item, the timber cut from the nearby forests. This far away from the centre of the empire, we must husband our town’s resources to ensure we can survive without the occasional traders passing through. It would be safer to say they arrive and then leave again. There is nowhere on the other side of here for them to go through to.
“Yes, when I went to the toilet.” Clara would not have the water outside – she complained her joints could not stand having to wash in icy cold water. I know that she simply wished to have indoor plumbing. It is foolish to have the water outside when it is simpler and easier to have it ready to go at all times. Those who insist it ‘isn’t right’ are foolish for putting their pride above simplicity.
I believe this focus on simplicity over tradition is how at almost twice my age, my mother still keeps herself together. There is no need for her to prove herself to anyone anymore. With the extra energy she has from not having to pump her own water, she can bake, cook, decorate and weave to her hearts content. I have seen the others taking buckets from the water pump, and they aren’t happier for it. I am lucky my mothers husband disappeared and allowed her to make changes in the house.
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When I have finished my bowl of porridge, I move to the sink – a stone basin with brick to either side for runoff into a collection barrel. It is helpful for watering the garden. Cleaning my bowl, I hear my mother speak from her own bowl of porride. “Your lunch is ready, my love.”
I thank her, the wrapped bread and cheese in its usual place on the counter in the corner of the room. With a kiss on my mother’s cheek, I hit the road. The village has been spending the fallow periods inserting stone into the paths to maintain its footing in the wet periods. Dusty roads are fine until they turn to sandy mud and make walking almost impossible on much of it. They are called ‘cobblestones’ according to some of the people who have brought back the idea from the long trip into the nearest large city. It takes time to cut the stones and even longer to bring them from the quarry a few kilometres away. In the spring, where there is much to be done in the fields, there is no time.
I am glad that I am not required to do that back breaking labour. Spending all day in the sun with the plants and the carts for fertiliser and other supplies is hard enough.
The sun peeks over the mountain range in the distance. I have heard they are infested with all kinds of creatures – wild and feral, feasting on each other in bloodthirsty rituals. It is enough for me that we are sometimes raised by green skinned people with pointy ears and long nails which look like claws. They raid when things are tough in the nearby areas, finding their way to us when they are out of options. We haven’t been attacked for a while since the town elders took the time to make a wide barrier in the forest by cutting down trees and preventing anything growing in that area.
I always thought they were desperate in those times, attacking from necessity rather than ‘primal urges’. It seems to have helped. And the tributes we give to them during harvest appear to have helped.
Once I have arrived at the field, I take my sturdy woven hat from its peg. I was lucky to find someone who could make them and pay with my earnings. I tried to make my own before I could buy one. It lasted a long time, but cast very little shade. This is much better.
With a cart in hand, I stop at the edge of the field, the width and breadth of it swaying in the gentle breeze, tillers aspiring towards the sky where they bear their grain for harvest. In a few weeks they should be fat on their florets. Standing with my feet shoulder width apart, and my hands loose at my side, I breathe in and out, slowly, and deeply.
This routine makes the interminable hours of bending down and dealing with the crops close to tolerable. When it gets particularly onerous, I hum short bursts of songs I have heard from the tavern.
My next purchase is boots. These were suitable for a while, but now that I have been oiling them and repairing them for many years they are beginning to be more patch than shoe. With no leather to make proper repairs, I have been reduced to using fabric instead. It is not the same. My toes are rubbing away at the end of each, forcing me to patch them weekly.
It will be a few more weeks before I can make the purchase.
